The Red Crown

Hey true weirdos at the end of this episode stick around if you want for a little bonus content and conversation The roadside motel an american classic from family vacations to sleazy rendezvous to hideouts for bank robbers to Norman Bates the roadside motel is 100 pure americana things happen in motels dark things secret things violent things This is a story about a motel and the outlaws who made it infamous They got a small beam of light Ha ha ha true weird stuff The very first motel in the whole world opened on december 12th 1925 in san luis obispo, california It was an idea born of the explosion of car culture in america Suddenly people could travel in a way that had never before been possible. The only real problem was the roads That and the reliability of automobiles on those roads Even a trip of a few hundred miles could take several days Back, then people used to just pull over and set up camp on the side of the road Sometimes with actual tents. Sometimes they just sleep in their cars Sure, there were hotels and inns to be found in populated places But simple and cheap accommodations Meant for just one night's stay were scarce San luis obispo tucked in between los angeles and san francisco was an ideal spot for travelers to rest Arthur Heineman an architect and developer saw this and he had an idea He built lodgings designed specifically for automobile travelers Heineman's concept featured small bungalows each with its very own garage Cost per night a buck 25 In today's money, that's twenty one dollars and ninety eight cents The fact that you can still find a cheap motel room for as low as maybe 38 bucks per night Today that's kind of charming. I guess Maybe check for bed bugs and keep your shoes on though But Arthur Heineman's motel was no crummy dive. It was pretty fabulous Designed in the spanish mission style with a courtyard and a bell tower The rooms all had central heating and showers and even offered a separate room for your chauffeur if you had one By combining the words motor and hotel Heineman coined the word motel. There's a little fun fact for you And it was a near instant success American travelers used to camping on the roadside or paying to sleep in cabins next to gas stations With all the size and charm of a chicken coop The milestone motel in san luis obispo was a luxurious treat Heineman's vision of creating a budget motel empire though was squashed by the great depression Still and despite a name change along the way the world's first motel managed to stay in business until 1991 Now the heyday of the american motel that lasted from 1925 through the 1960s It's ironic how the very thing that birthed the motel industry caused its fall Dozens and dozens of little motor courts dotted america's roadways And then the interstate highway system changed the game

Suddenly those motels found themselves off the beaten path forgotten Travelers instead exited the highway and checked into one of america's new budget hotel chains These were places that promised the same room in tuscaloosa As to come carry the same predictable comfort from rochester to reno Holiday inn first opened its doors in 1952 Howard johnson in 1954 And motel six wasn't far behind welcoming its first guests in 1962 Roadside motels typically mom and pop businesses struggled to compete with these franchise operations that not only had the resources to advertise But now could boast more convenient locations, too Of course not every motel in america fell on hard times Take the wagon wheel motel in cuba, missouri It's been open for business on old route 66 since 1931 Then there's new mexico's blue swallow motel operating since 1939 But you know how it is with people It's hard to have nice things It took us about a hot minute to transition from Arthur Heineman's swaggy little bungalows To the very seediest possible rent by the hour lodges the no-tell motel You can see how it happened the classic motel design the one we still use today Let's guests pull their cars right up to the door of their room It was easy to enter and exit completely unobserved No, grand lobby. No concierge. No bellhops to witness the comings and goings of any guests Plus it was rare for a motel to even require their customers to show an id That pretty much ended completely after the terrorist attacks on september 11 2001 But in the early days of the motel before credit cards were a thing You could pull off the road at any hour of the day or night swap cash for a key And it was no one's business, but your own what you might be up to in that room And americans have been busy getting up to all kinds of things in motel rooms ever since our story though Is about one particular motel The name probably won't ring any bells and you've possibly never heard of the town where it all happened But the guests who made this motel infamous You've heard of them You maybe just don't know this story and it's a good one Parkville missouri is a suburb of kansas city It's a charming place with art galleries antique shops. And yes lots and lots of parks It's home to nearly 8 000 people and it's considered one of the nicest towns in the whole state Honestly, it looks like one of those towns you see on the drug commercials on tv just freaking adorable with cute bakeries and gourmet ice cream and even a quaint general store where you can buy stuff like Toss pillows and blazing with the town zip code and kitschy kitchen towels but something big Happened in parkville one summer many years ago Something they don't mention on the town's website or at missourilife.com It's 1933 And parkville is a very different place than the one we know today Only 636 souls called it home But listen, it's a mistake to confuse small with insignificant Because this little town had plenty of dramatic history The land that was founded on was purchased by a veteran of the texas war for independence One colonel george s park. He was the town's first postmaster. He built warehouses and a hotel

16 years after establishing his town park founded a newspaper called the industrial luminary one of the first papers in the county Now the industrial luminary began publishing in 1853 That was a period of high conflict because the border between missouri and kansas had become a battleground over the issue of slavery It was a super complicated time Even though the confederacy recognized missouri as its 12th state Missouri was like Uh, hello. We actually leave the union sir. So whatever But like I said, it was complicated the divisions were deep and painful and ever on the verge of erupting into violence Colonel park had his own town and now his own newspaper and the editorials he published in it argued passionately for the abolition of slavery If you think people hate the media now, just know this that is nothing new on april 14th 1855 a mob more than 200 strong descended on the offices of the industrial luminary Dragged the papers printing press out of the building and chucked it into the river Colonel park responded to this assault by heading for illinois where he made himself a solid fortune in real estate But two years later he came home to parkville where he worked like a dog to get the town hooked up to the railroad Only to lose out on the bid for a bridge spanning the missouri river to nearby kansas city After a stint in the missouri senate, he returned to his beloved parkville again This time donating land to establish what became park college He died in 1890 With no notion of what the future had in store for his sweet little town So Parkville 1933 population 636 A bustling little downtown sidewalks and paved streets a paved road leading straight to kansas city Times were hard though since this was right smack in the middle of the great depression The terrible drought of the early 30s what we call the dust bowl devastated western missouri This was grapes of wrath territory fields lay barren People went hungry If you could pick up a gig on one of the federal work projects, you could earn 20 cents an hour For some perspective a pack of smokes ran about 14 cents Coffee was about 39 cents per pound and the cost of a gallon of milk You know the favorite economic marker of politicians everywhere That hovered somewhere in the 50 cent range Desperation was everywhere. You turned Except not so much for kansas city The so-called paris of the plains managed to thrive during the depression It was a magnet for culture, especially jazz The mayor at the time tom pendergast was not only a fine civic leader But a man who happily got his hands dirty with all sorts of corrupt backroom deals Big construction projects funded by Questionably acquired government dollars kept people employed And attracted newcomers drawn to the city's lights and sounds and seemingly magical prosperity The place was a magnet for criminals, too gangsters bootleggers bank robbers Pickpockets, you name it Kansas city was a place to be And sleepy little parkville was just 10 miles north Now small as it was Parkville did boast its very own motel the red crown tourist court In 1933, it was just two years old built by a parkville banker named Emmett Breen

The property included a small restaurant and even a ballroom Still wasn't especially fancy Just a pair of small cabins connected by two garages Breen clearly had the same idea as Arthur Heineman in san luis obispo He designed the red crown to cater to automobile travelers The red crown caught the eye of one very specific traveler Not a salesman Not a tourist It was an outlaw by the name of clide barrow He was traveling with his brother buck barrow buck's wife glanch an accomplice named wd jones And clide's girlfriend bonnie parker And they were in one righteous hurry to get off the road and find someplace to hole up and rest for a few days In case you're going Wait a minute Clyde barrow bonnie parker Are you talking about bonnie and clide?

the bonnie and clide You nailed it the bonnie and clive Why the mad dash to parkville of all places? well You could look at it as just one more of many bad decisions Compounded by recklessness and impulsivity and poor planning These are outlaws we're talking about though. Not the rotary club poor judgment is part of the package In this case a car accident in texas 40 days earlier had left bonnie with critical burns and very near death Seeking medical attention is not an option Because by early summer 1933 Clyde and his gang they were wanted for everything from robbery to murder The fbi was on the case and even in those days before mass media and social media A manhunt at this scale Was huge news Clyde and the crew had done their best to look after the injured bonnie and a pair of rennet cabins at the dennis tourist camp in fort smith arkansas Didn't take long to run out of money Clyde sent his brother buck and wd out to raise some money for their stay, you know Like by robbing a store or two and steal us a bigger car while you're at it the pair made a mess of it Thinking I guess that it will be best to not do their criming in fort smith They drove 50 miles or so to the town of fayetteville There they managed to knock off a small grocery store Leaving with only 20 and 35 cents Then like a pair of chuckleheads they floored it at high speed back to fort smith Now, you know how cops are when this sort of thing happens They love to jump on the radio and alert other police jurisdictions and make a whole day of it That's what happened here alma arkansas town marshal henry d humphrey and crawford county deputy sheriff ansel m salyers raced north on highway 71 to intercept the crooks It'd be slapstick if it wasn't so tragic buck at the wheel of the getaway car Was driving so fast that he could barely control the car and wound up crashing it into a slower moving vehicle at the exact moment That law dogs humphrey and salyers roared past what are the odds?

Of course the two lawmen immediately abandoned their pursuit of the bandits to attend to the car wreck Not realizing that it was the bandits that had caused the car wreck That's when buck snatched up clyde sawed off shotgun and blew marshall humphrey's chest wide open Humphrey was dead and despite deputy salyer's best efforts to return fire He missed every shot Salyer took off running for a nearby farmhouse and buck and wd took off in the deputy's car At least they had the sense to abandon the cop car at some point because they were on foot when they finally returned To the dennis torres cabins in fort worth smith History is unable to tell us exactly what clyde said when his two sweaty henchmen burst into the cabin with only 20 bucks And the news of a dead lawman But you get the feeling it had to be something like moe from the three stooges, you know The gang had no choice but to flee now Hauling the badly burned bonnie parker with them Oh my god Can you imagine the misery?

the pain crammed back into that car Jostling along at high speed on roads that were in no way smooth ribbons of asphalt It had to be excruciating Bonnie was only 22 Already divorced once addicted to romance novels crazy in love with a violent sociopath A criminal's lover and his accomplice a bad girl a really bad girl But a bad girl who apparently only ever shot one person Herself in the foot. She was playing with one of clyde's guns when it happened Let that be a lesson kids But I guess my point is She was a burn victim something that always means terrible suffering and it's hard not to feel sorry for her Come on, you feel it too. Don't you just a little bit sorry just a little bit Anyhow, the gang already had money problems now. They could add a brand new murder to the pile Plus they'd broken cover and shown themselves The law dogs were more motivated than ever to take them down Today the drive from fort smith arkansas to fort dodge. Iowa is 560 miles on paved roads and interstate highways But remember this isn't today this is 1933 dirt roads and gravel roads were the norm Sure, you'd hit some asphalt here and there but these were the early days of road construction in arkansas Iowa mostly rural and largely dependent on the railroad left road maintenance to local farmers who graded roads and graveled them as needed hellish trip for poor bonnie Once in fort dodge The gang embarked on what can only be described as an utterly half-assed string of gas station robberies It was a mess what with them busting open vending and gumball machines to get at the coins inside making hostages of gas station attendants Hostages they had no place to hide and no room for in the car either They had to set every one of them free And then with the meager 150 dollars they managed to eke out of that disastrous detour they hit the road again Clyde wanted to head for kansas city Buck didn't on the grounds that the place would surely be crawling with every flavor of law enforcement imaginable Buck wasn't wrong It had only been a month since the kansas city massacre cost four cops their lives in a bloody gun battle at the union station railroad depot Clyde won the argument even though buck was the older brother Because clyde was straight up scary psycho dangerous and buck Knew that Better than anyone. It was another miserable drive another 250 miles in the direction of kansas city Bonnie and agony buck seething Clyde in a cold fury Who even knows what blanche and wd were thinking?

It was late when they pulled into a small town service station to refuel That's when clyde saw it the red crown tourist court right across the street two cabins two garages quiet intersection Not too far from kansas city Best of all the cabins were built a brick sturdy safe The decision was made This is where the gang would hole up and give bonnie some time to heal It was blanche farrow who was sent into the red crown to secure their lodgings Clyde made buck and wd hide under a blanket in the back seat of the car Clyde had to hope that this strategy might work to throw police off their trail but blanch made two critical mistakes First she strolled into the red crown wearing her favorite tight job purse You know those snug little britches that people wear to ride horses Dressing in tight riding pants was scandalous at a time when very few women wore pants at all in public The job purse made blanche memorable too memorable I tried super hard to come up with a modern equivalent, you know something that would be shocking to see a woman wearing But we live in an era when your grandma is walking the beach in a thong. So I just don't even know Two nights ago. I spotted a woman walking into a jw marriott wearing shorts and a pair of nipple pasties made of tube socks As god is my witness and I swear I think I was the only person who even took notice of it Anyway back to 1933 small town parkville late on a summer night And into this little out of the way motel strolls beautiful blanche in her tight and altogether shocking job purse first mistake Second mistake She paid for the cabins and coins Which might not have seemed so terribly unusual given the fact that this was the great depression and everyone was scraping their nickels together except Remember that string of stupid robberies in iowa and all those vending and gumball machines pried open all those stolen coins sloppy sloppy sloppy But the red crown's manager wasn't paying attention to the pile of coins in blanche's hands It was her attire He didn't approve of her brazen disregard for the dress code of the day And over the next few days as he studied the behavior of his new guests He became more and more suspicious That something sketchy might be afoot and no wonder Clyde had taped up newspapers over every window in the cabins Occasionally a corner of paper would be folded down And an eye could be seen peeking out Remember, there were only two cabins at the red crown and the pharaoh gang had booked both It wasn't like there were a load of other guests to distract attention from behavior That was about as textbook guilty criminal as you could get And of course there was bombshell blanch in her job purse sent out by clyde again and again on one errand after another Parkville then didn't get many tourists at all much less one as stunning and unconventional as this Every time she stepped into the restaurant every head turned every pair of eyes narrowed Watching as she counted out the coins to pay for five dinners five drinks five every time The gang's third mistake Wasn't so much a mistake as it was a stroke of plain bad luck It just so happened that the service station and restaurant at the red crown was a favorite of the missouri state

highway patrol It was a convenient little oasis for officers to meet up and swap info Something that was standard operating procedure in those days before two-way radios and cell phones Now blanch had begun to suspect that the town was buzzing with gossip over the newest guests at the red crown She had no clue though that now both cops and pharmacies across the midwest were on the lookout for the gang Pharmacies had been alerted because bonnie's burn injuries were well known to the law Police figured that Clyde Barrow was far too clever to dare bring his lady to a hospital Or even to the office of a rural physician Burns like that though would have to be treated somehow within days that guest paid off a pharmacist named louis bernstein called the sheriff's office in parkville to report that a very Attractive young lady wearing what he called Quote slinky riding pants Had just been in the store to purchase bandages a medication called atropine burn salve syringes It was all adding up Could the barrow gang the barrow gang be hiding out in a motel in quiet little parkville, missouri Parkville sheriff holt coffee received the news with real dread He knew full well that the barrow gang was a pack of very well-armed sociopaths with zero regard for human life and the simple truth was Sheriff coffee's office just wasn't equipped for that kind of fight They didn't have anywhere near the kind of firepower needed to take on clyde barrow Parkville just wasn't that kind of place Coffee pleaded with the sheriff of nearby kansas city to share resources He finally succeeded in getting the loan of some men some serious weapons like thompson machine guns a handful of reinforced steel shields and even an armored car Blanche meanwhile had become increasingly uneasy She'd noticed and didn't like the way conversation in the restaurant Abruptly died down as she entered only to resume as she closed the door to leave She didn't care for the way the manager of the red crown studied her There was something cold and calculating in the man's stare something hostile She told her husband buck of her worries buck sent her to the next cabin to report them to clyde The two brothers still weren't speaking to each other Clyde listened to blanche but dismissed her concerns. He said it was all just her imagination playing tricks Still later that night when it came time for the next meal run Blanche refused to go In her place. Clyde sent 17 year old wd jones jones ordered sandwiches for five along with five bottles of soda pop He counted out a handful of bright coins to pay his tab and headed back to the cabins It was now 10 30 p.m on july 19th 1933 The parking lot at the red crown that night was a hive of activity for the late hour Witnesses later said that wd jones was nervous his gaze flicking anxiously over the men milling about It all should have set off alarm bells in his head But if it did he kept that to himself Why he didn't tell clyde is a mystery Maybe because he was only 17 In over his head and scared out of his mind or He was only 17 and cocky convinced of his own cleverness and cunning Either way wd failed to grasp that what he'd seen in that parking lot

Was the makings of an ambush? Sometime around 1 a.m After carefully maneuvering the borrowed armored car to block the little motel's garage doors Sheriff coffee and his men rapped on the doors of the two cabins after a time Blanche finally responded Calling out that she wasn't dressed and couldn't possibly open the door Then in response to sheriff coffee's questions. She said that the men were all in the other cabin That was the cue Clyde barrow opened fire Given sheriff coffee's careful preparations This should have been at least a more fair fight between the outlaws and law enforcement The police had the advantage of surprise plus reinforcements from kansas city But these cops were about to learn That they were still shockingly outgunned Plus like a cat with nine lives Clyde barrow managed to catch one very lucky break Remember how the red crown was set up a garage for each cabin One of those cabins happened to have an internal door that led directly into the garage the very cabin shared by clyde barrow bonnie parker and wd jones Scooping bonnie up. They moved her into the car to make their escape Peering out a sliver of window. They saw that that escape was blocked Not by a brink's truck or an armored military vehicle But by what appeared to be a regular old car with bulletproof glass and steel boiler plate welded to its frame bullet resistant maybe but not bulletproof Clyde wd and buck opened fire striking the driver in both knees The vehicle's horn was hit either by a bullet or by the wounded driver. It began blaring This was a sign the lawman mistakenly took to mean hold your fire the injured driver george highfill Backed the vehicle away Leaving the garage door suddenly in the clear Which was all the opportunity clyde needed to make his getaway Now buck barrow did not have his brother's uncanny good luck He was hit A bullet fired by a missouri state patrolman slammed into his temple and exited through his forehead I guess maybe you could actually argue that buck was lucky because somehow That shot didn't kill him Even though buck's brain was visible through all the blood. He was rapidly losing The man was somehow still alive and conscious With bonnie parker already slumped in the getaway car and wd jones providing cover Blanche and clyde somehow hauled the gravely wounded buck barrow into the car And in a hail of bullets the barrow gang sped off into the night They were alive, but not unscathed a last burst of machine gun fire slammed into the car a bullet fragment grazing blanche's head slivers of shattered glass piercing both her eyes It had all happened so fast That when police searched the two cabins they found clothing The five untouched sandwiches wd had purchased just hours earlier And a cache of weapons that made their blood run cold nearly 50 colt 45 automatic pistols a half dozen crazy powerful browning automatic rifles and most damning The weapon buck and wd had lifted from the body of the town marshal they'd murdered back in alma, arkansas There was no high speed pursuit of the outlaws that night no pursuit at any speed

Not one of those officers was willing to give chase as the kansas city star newspaper observed The outlaws got all the breaks in their brush with missouri law For all the chaos and gunfire that night It's a small miracle that only a handful of officers were hurt and those injuries were minor Sheriff coffee himself got winged by friendly fire buckshot Fortunately, his son got scraped up by debris sent flying by the heavy volley of bullets For all that good news. There was no denying that the red crown tourist court had been under siege The morning sun revealed that the property had taken a pounding from the gunfight The shattered glass from windows and windshields sparkled on the ground There were bullet holes everywhere walls doors vehicles There were sprays of bullet holes in the wall of the restaurant But as if by luck or providence not a single customer employee was injured The reinforced steel shields had protected the officers But bullets from the outlaw's browning automatics Left the metal surfaces shockingly pockmarked and dented Something to think about in all this reckless murderous hot mess Except for buck barrow who was 30 years old The rest of the barrow gang were young Wd was a teenager though. That word wouldn't even be coined for another decade People did grow up faster back then and the great depression only accelerated that Still that doesn't change the basic facts of human biology The prefrontal cortex in humans isn't fully developed until the mid to late 20s The prefrontal cortex is where the complex stance of decision action and consequence gets sorted out or not like in the case of Clyde Barrow and company And I think you can see that in some of the truly wtf choices that were made as they carried out their bloody crime spree robbing the gumball machines And not thinking about how incriminating those piles of coins might prove to be later or blanch Not pausing to consider how much she didn't blend in how perhaps her job purse might be her undoing And what innocent tourist covers over their motel windows with newspaper What in the world were they thinking?

Looks like they just weren't Buck alone was old enough to boast a fully baked prefrontal cortex And Clyde made it clear that buck Wasn't calling the shots When the barrow gang peeled out of the parking lot at the red crown that night Tail lights disappearing into the darkness of a country summer night They were in bad shape But they got away and against all odds and logic somehow buck barrow was still alive Despite that bullet that punched a hole in his forehead Bonnie was half delirious from pain Blanche's face was bleeding and her eyes blurred and stinging full of splinters of broken glass And as the gang rocketed across the heartland They pitched bloody bandages and pieces of clothing from the windows of the moving car Items that locals found and snatched up like macabre souvenirs When the outlaws next pulled off the road It was at an abandoned amusement park in rural, Iowa What happened next is another story for another time And the red crown tourist court that tiny motel in Parkville, Missouri It found itself on america's map of notorious places And here's a fun plot twist In 1945 the property was purchased by the now former sheriff coffee He ran the place for five years turning it into a popular and successful honky-tonk A decade later a kitchen fire tore through the place leaving it almost completely destroyed souvenir hunters and the curious descended on the place carting off as much as they could carry and a decade after that Arthur Penn's 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde sparked a wild enthusiasm for the stories of the Barrow gang A dollar would buy a single brick From what was left of the red crown A year later in 1968 The buildings were completely demolished Whatever scraps are left are submerged now under nearly 60 years of weedy overgrowth Too bad you can't pay to visit today Well, I mean you can But it's something that if you didn't know it was there You probably wouldn't give it a second thought Even as you walked right past it What ended the red crown tourist court wasn't the real life Bonnie and Clyde It wasn't that terrible fire in 1950 It was the same thing that dropped the hammer on hundreds of American roadside motels the highway system Parkville got bypassed by the interstate and then was eventually annexed by Kansas City Today you can find a historical marker near the site where the red crown once stood To find it just make your way to the far southeastern corner of the parking lot of a company called WireCo WorldGroup It's a small thing that historical marker A blink and you'd miss it Just 107 words commemorating the night five reckless young Americans outgunned a coalition of Missouri lawmen and fled straight into Hollywood Immortality Next time on true weird stuff Have you ever wished that you could get beamed up like on Star Trek that teleportation was real?

What if it is? And what if it involves a long ago ship? And an airplane surrounded by mystery on the next true weird stuff Max this was one of those episodes that um got uh Got loose and escaped the pasture. I was working on a completely different story And I came upon this Bonnie and Clyde Gunfight at the red crown tourist court, and I was like, wait a minute. That's not That's not what happened, but of course it is what happened Um, it's just not what happened in the movie and i've been going around asking people Um who who I know are into this sort of like, you know, true crime and americana. I'm like, hey, did you know?

um in real life that bonnie had been really critically burned and was barely conscious for most of uh, the latter part of their of their um crime spree and that um That she didn't look or act like fay donnelly in the movie And no one did so why why is it so different than the movie? This would seem like it's a pretty good story all in and of itself This well, this is what I totally love about like the real story. I very often you know, like when you turn it into a book or a movie it gets Dramatized but the story of the barrow gang All by itself was awesome So in the movie if you've seen the classic movie starring warren baity as clyde barrow And by the way, clyde barrow owes warren baity a thank you note in a fruit basket because in real life Clyde barrow did not resemble warren. No Bonnie and blanche were drop dead knockout beautiful, but clyde looked like a weasel in suspenders Anywho, um In the movie they set that gunfight that took place in parkville, missouri they set it in iowa They changed the name of the motel. They changed the location from just outside. Kansas city to iowa And I don't know if they if they did that because they couldn't figure out a way to make Filming this crew, you know crisscrossing the country at high speed And stolen cars if they couldn't figure out a way to make that work for you know film storytelling But the fact that like nobody realizes that happened there That this is a part of missouri's history not iowa's history And that that that little corner of that parking lot is where you would go to stand on that ground That's just I love that. I love that. The true story is better than the movie in this case Yeah, and i'm I am so fascinated with those those old motels, too In fact, I drove cross-country once delivering a motel and I drove a good part of the old route 66 It's in pieces So you can't it's not like a street shot anymore But I stayed at a couple of these motels that were like this that might have even been from this era And so when you're describing it, I can really picture it in my mind I have a fascination with roadside motels. I'm forever Badgering my husband to stay like when we're on the road to stay at one we stayed at the big texas stake ranch on i-40 in amarillo We've stayed at we stayed at an amazing little hotel called the retro Um, I think it's the retro inn In cortez colorado, like I love those places And the blue swallow which is one of the original First american roadside motels is um operational in tucumcari in new mexico And so if you ever have a chance and most of these, um Motels that have survived are on the old original route 66 which parallels 40 in a lot of places across the country You should definitely give be open to giving them a shot. It's you know, it's not the embassy suites Yeah, they have their own their own kind of energy What and what's really fascinating at this time is because they they used to put out travel guides We're very big at this time because you didn't have those chain motels where you could depend on Okay, you're going to stay at a lakinta You know what it's going to be you stay at a holiday and express you kind of know what you're getting if you stay at A ramada any of those places and so I I love looking at some of that stuff those old kind of travel Uh travel you you can find them in bookstores and stuff Uh that kind of give you an idea of what what some of these places were like because You wouldn't have known otherwise And they're they're wonderful and they were all like little independent mom and pop businesses But the the model the business model for the motel almost immediately lent itself to vice

because of You could come in at any hour of the day or night and and really Maybe have one point of contact between you and whoever took your money and hand at your room key, right? I mean if you think about the opening of the hitchcock movie psycho where janet lee pulls into the bates motel that you know the bates motel, um became something creepy and horrifying in the movie psycho, but Actually from a setup standpoint. That was sort of the way it was They they all kind of operate it like that little, you know roadways and byways and you could pull in and get some sleep or In the case of the barrow gang hide from the law like you could do a map of Um roadside american motels that this that these outlaws used All as they as they hopped around the country because they had to Like whether the road was paved or not whether bonnie was in the back seat unconscious from her agony from being burned so badly They had to haul There was no like being casual about it They had to they had to put a lot of miles between them and each one of their crimes And then they would post up at one of these little roadside motels to lick their wounds and recover and hide And can we talk about blanche barrow for a minute?

I've seen pictures of her and i've seen pictures of her in the riding pants And you know if she sees somebody you see somebody in an old picture and you go well Okay, I can kind of see how they were pretty I can say She was smoking. She really was She was on y'all. She was a knock out and she she got married two more times and apparently tried to because We talked about this before and we we talked a little bit about this Found out some information about her She got married two more times after buck and tried to have children had a lot of miscarriages and then ended up Adopting a 12 year old boy at some point along the line and she lived until uh, 1988. So she actually lived a long life Yeah, I think of the gang only blanche really came out. Okay. Yeah Um, and I don't think blanche, um had ever killed anyone Blanche so clyde was 30 blanche was in her like 22. Yeah, um, not not clyde. I'm, sorry Buck buck barrow clyde's brother was 30 and you know, she fell and crazy in love with him and married him and you know, then it turns out oh your husband's a Consciousness remorseless Outlaw and blanche is like what are you gonna do till death do his part, right? I took some vows Um, but i'm not sure that blanche was ever uh on like She was an accomplice But I think she would have easily been an accomplice to like standing by the side of the road and washing cars Like whatever it was that buck was doing didn't you don't you get that feeling?

Yeah, I got that feeling as well. And by the way buck did die from that that uh gunshot wound I mean he he did live for a little while and despite that wonderful description of you could see his brain Yeah, I wanted to talk about that in this But he did die eventually from that it's not like he went around as an exhibited circus has shown his brain I I think he lived for three days Yeah after that and he was talking and eating I I just don't even know how that works. Like I know that the human brain is a mystery. I was just reading um something fascinating about memory and Uh it and how memory disperses across the brain in people that have lost like big portions of their brain to disease or Or injury, it's like fascinating. We should probably do an episode on it So I I don't know how buck bearer's brain worked but folks He took a bullet to the forehead. You could see his brain and for three days. He was chatting and eating Yeah Well, they do call this podcast true weird stuff so, you know, that's weird that's some weird right there Yeah, buck died. And of course, you know, we all know that bonnie and clide uh, clive barrow and bonnie parker, um went out, you know in a hail of law enforcement bullets Guess what? You didn't know Because and of course they're not going to put this in the movie. What kind of a movie do we have?

If the fit if the female star playing bonnie Is unconscious in the back seat dying of burns like that's not a movie, right? we need her to be sassy and beautiful and And she and clide to have all this like hot sexual tension or whatever And that's not the true story that said Clyde barrow was a psycho But There was not one moment where bonnie was left behind or where some attempt was not made by clide to look after her which I realized You know is me giving him kind of a pass Not really a pass so much as like putting some humanity onto the legend Weren't you struck by that? Yeah Yeah, the other and the um the other guy wd Yeah, 17 years old. Yeah, so, um, he ended up uh living a long life until he was um like I want to say the 1970s that I looked up and then but he died a violent death In a gun at that point you'd think he would have had that whole crime and gun thing figured out by them, but he hadn't um, but I was so When I was a kid, I was so fascinated with uh, all those gangsters from that era I ended up knowing a lot more about them. Uh, just because I just I And I think there's always been a sense of romance that went with that Um, there were these outlaws that were on the run, you know well, and the bonnie and clide story in particular I can see why it captured the public's imagination they were They were reckless Lawless Just absolutely out of control it pure id on wheels at during the great depression And I think there were people that root it for them, right?

You know that people that were like, yeah times are hard you go and take what you need, right? So like any you know, any good outlaw they had their fans as well as their their foes It's just the true story is so much Worse Than the movie like they were so cavalier about human life They they didn't need to kill that marshall in arkansas right um, first of all if they hadn't been driving like We're so ridiculously What's the saying that we have?

Don't do something illegal while you're doing something illegal Okay, so you've just knocked off a little rural grocery store and 20 bucks not a lot of money But it's it was a ton of money back then it was enough money back then at least to get them out of town Drive sedately back to your motel in fort smith Right, but did they do that? No, no No, they drove like maniacs wd probably he was behind the wheel right barely knows how to drive Right, they they drive like maniacs. They caused this giant car wreck And They end up killing an innocent Man that killing not marshall. They would have killed the deputy too Um, they just came to their senses and realized. Oh, there's his car. We should steal it and get out of here When you when you add up the way that they committed crimes What you see is like a pack of reckless kids Making the kind of decisions that you make when you're 17 Dude they they've robbed gumball machines Yeah, I need to think about that like These were not high-tech robberies for sure I mean, you know this I think the banks people didn't care if they robbed the banks because the banks were the bad guys during the depression the banks Were the people taking your home?

so I think you could get away with that so I I think that but when it comes to the the murder and everything I think people were so much less forgiving about all of that stuff during that time well, they were just they just didn't they Life had no value For I won't speak for all of them. Let me speak for clyde Um who was clearly in charge much to buck's fury In fact buck took the bullet to his head estranged from his brother. They were they had been Fighting and icing each other out since the decision was made to head toward kansas city, which buck was against remember right so um Clyde was firmly in charge It was clyde sending blanch out so inappropriately dressed for a teeny tiny small town in the countryside of missouri in 1933 clyde taping newspapers over the windows clyde dismissing Everyone's concerns right? That was all clyde. Like he was A monster, but apparently super duper charismatic because he had these people including his older brother Jumping to his every command It's interesting, isn't it? It is but not nearly as charismatic as the actor warren baity who portrayed him So we can we can say that I mean, there's nothing worse than a paranoid psychopath. I mean truly When I I know when and i've seen bonnie and clyde Um, we kevin and I watched it during the covet lockdowns when we were just like chewing our way through everything that could be watched and You know, it was made in 1967. It is an it is a classic of american film making right? Right?

And but sometimes you know the older movies that were very shocking in their day seem a little bit tame I don't know about you But I found the violence and this the bonnie and clyde story as told by the movie to be like Shocking and devastating And horrifying like there was nothing tame or you know old time about it It was her it was incredibly violent. Yeah It was incredibly violent and people people always talk about the scene where uh, bonnie and clyde met their end where they were laying in wait the law enforcement people were laying in wait and they just They just pelted the car with with gunfire And in fact the car i've seen pictures of the car and it seems to me the car you can see it somewhere it's in a museum or something, but there's very I mean, there isn't one part of that car that doesn't have bullet holes on it when you when you see the movie and and that scene I felt Even though I knew what was coming I felt sick watching that scene because as my husband will tell me three times an hour woman You're just too soft and it's true. I am like I just like wait a minute. Can we talk about it?

Wait a minute. Can we let's bring them alive and have some justice, you know? That scene where they are just mowed down and a hail of bullets Was so painful to watch But when you know the truth That bonnie Probably was barely Like coherent when those bullets hit and it was a mercy killing maybe for her Do you know what it's like to have your body covered in second and third degree burns?

And bouncing along america's unpaved country roads, yeah But of course looking back at the movie and the filmmaker arthur penn What kind of ending is it if we have the police Unleashing a hail of bullets into clyde and this injured woman who's slipping in and out of consciousness That's not going to really work. Is it? No Audiences wouldn't like that audiences aren't going to accept it So let's talk a little bit about bonnie before we wrap up So she's 22 She's married to clyde. She has his initials the initials of her first husband tattooed on her knee Which in case you were thinking that's a new thing That's 100 years old. It's a sure way to have it end Um, she was visiting her husband in prison bonnie. Bonnie was not good at choosing men Let's just go ahead and say that right?

So she's visiting her first husband in prison and that's where she encounters Clyde barrow and as much as I look at him and go, sir, you are no war b He must have had some sort of powerful magnetic attraction charisma charm pick one pick them all Because that was it. The first husband was like completely forgotten and bonnie was all in on clyde But she was a as a teenager. She had been dreamy and restless and addicted To romance novels and so I think for bonnie You know, she maybe saw this through very like Distorted rose-colored glasses You know, he's not bad. He's misunderstood We're not outlaws we're just trying to survive I I don't know I don't know because bonnie Bonnie's a little bit of a mystery. Like what can you really tell me about bonnie of bonnie and clyde?

Really not a lot of anything I mean Um, and there was nothing there was nothing in her life to indicate that she was prone to criminal activity younger in her life Now clyde barrow. Yes And they the first husband she had um, yes But as far as she's concerned no there seemed to be nothing that would uh make you say oh this is somebody who's going to go on a on the road with uh, you know a psychopathic Bank robber and kill people and kill law enforcement officers I tried to imagine, you know, like I tried to send myself back in time to it's the mid to late 1920s And i'm a teenage girl named bonnie And it's the depression And I live in a small town and I don't have much in the way of distractions or prospects And I just love these dime store romance novels that tell of passion and adventure you know you know the the male protagonists in those books are often Pirates and highwaymen and outlaws, right? Like there's a whole genre of romantic fiction Where you know the pirate kidnaps the the woman and she fights against him Until their lips meet and the flames of passion consume them, right that kind of thing Yeah, and I I thought Yeah, we got this girl And she lives in a world of daydreams and stories from these books And she's beautiful. She's she's tiny. She was really not very tall. She was tiny Just a little bitty thing so pretty so sweet stars in her eyes and this desire for something more than the life she'd been born into Like she was right for the picking by a bad boy Like her first husband and by a worse boy like clide barrow And she paid for being A dreamy teenager in love with the idea of love she paid for it with her life and I wanted to make a point of um Saying in the episode because people hear bonnie and clive bonnie and clive bonnie and clive and they put them both on the same plane um in terms of agency and criminal behavior And I don't really think that's true And you know me i'm always looking to i'm a woman's woman. I'm always looking to empower a sister And there was a part of me that wanted bonnie to be more um In charge of her own destiny to be making more of these decisions and to not be a victim But it's hard to see her that way when here. She is so critically burned and Suffering and just being hauled from one place to the next and then dies in a massacre of bullets I like I just felt so sad for her What is it about her that I don't know that would make me feel a little tougher and sterner about bonnie parker She um, she was Susceptible to somebody coming in and controlling her because she didn't have a great deal of you know self-worth perhaps and maybe you could look at that and say you might be able to find something in that but you know, she She did some bad things She did. I mean she did and she paid She paid I mean bonnie was out of it from texas from the time they left texas By the time they got to arkansas to fort smith bonnie was fully and completely out of it And everyone from the local law enforcement to the fbi knew That bonnie was severely injured that's why they put out the apb on pharmacies across the midwest they

Knew and the drug. Oh and and before long before they killed the marshall in um arkansas They they had there had been some other robberies where they'd stolen some medical supplies They'd broken into a doctor's office and stolen some stuff but one of the drugs that Um That was procured by blanche was a sedative like Bonnie just didn't know where she was or what was happening. I I feel I don't know. I feel very conflicted about bonnie parker um Can I mention one other thing?

I I noticed That we had a character from room 1046 show up in this podcast as well Tom pendergast, that's right Yeah, if you listen to the room 1046 episode, we went into more detail about what a mecca for crime and vice and pleasure kansas city was the reason the kansas city was shielded from the Horrifying impacts of the great depression Was because kansas city was being fueled by crime And by pendergast's ability to run some shady shady deals with the wpa And government money to keep people depression era people employed So yeah, and i'll tell you another little funny connection um, you talked about that first motel was in san luis obispo as a child when we drove cross country and we came down the San luis obispo Did you stay at that? Because it had a different name. We did not I'm sure we did not stay there. We were staying at that point. There were chain motels around So we were staying at chain motels for the most part. We were staying. Oh best westerns and stuff Because that one max that one was open until 1991 I mean think about that While it is possible. I don't think that we did but I can't remember Actually, I have a journal that I kept I'm, such a weird kid I kept a journal every day while we were on the road and I made note of where we were and everything else And then my father gave me At some point along the line they were going through boxes. He gave me the little notebook he had And he also had where every where we stayed how much he spent for gas and how much he spent on rooms and stuff And he kept all that stuff and so I have still I still have this yes, I have it in a box somewhere I have to i'd have to find it. But yeah, I still have all that stuff. Oh, that's cool So I am fascinated with old motels. I worked in a motel worked on a holiday inn uh, which was Quite an education for a young man who was in high school Who had come out of a seminary high school but um I love the history that you gave with that because that's that is a fascinating part of american history that I don't think people understand is how all that uh, how all of that came about and then how the chain motels came to be with the rise of the eisenhower interstate system Oh, it's and it's shocking how many places how many threads of american pop culture?

um kind of weave in and out of uh the great Phenomenon of the american roadside motel. It's not just the barrow gang There are lots and lots of wild stories we're going to have an episode coming up in 2024 about a no-tell motel and everyone's favorite flamboyant and glorious piano player liberace okay, like they're The history of the american roadside motel is a rich and I can't wait for that one Yeah, so Um, I just want to say as we as we wrap up as someone who You know had a passing interest in the exploits of bonnie and clide Learning more of the true story and the real story changed um my idea of Bonnie and clide. I had a very comic book very one-dimensional Idea of who they were. Well, they were a bound of outlaws and robbers who killed people to get away And and I came away with something else There's very little enjoyment or romance to how they had to live their lives because of that Yeah that well, that's the other thing like it's that's what I can't shake about bonnie the misery Of this young woman's life like there was nothing glamorous about it And I guess maybe It's some comfort to her ghost that she's remembered as this incredible badass outlaw when the truth is Is she was a young girl with stars in her eyes?

Who was suffering and barely conscious for like the last two weeks of her life? You can see why people prefer the outlaw version the glamorous beautiful red lipstick outlaw version Because it makes you really really weirdly uncomfortable When you think about what the truth was doesn't it and she got to see buck barrow's brain. So I as long as I live I will never Get over I have seen my husband refuse food with a head cold Look at buck barrow. You can see his brain and he's like i'll have some more chicken Just amazing And on that note, there's really something wrong with us what fascinates us We are we're we're creepy people. And hey, if you've hung out this long in the episode, you're creepy people, too We love you our family. Thank you for listening. We'll see on the next true weird stuff And if you listen to us on apple podcast hit the plus button in the top right corner And now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered and we really appreciate it If you subscribe rate and review true weird stuff hit our website true weird stuff.com for show notes and Photos and videos when we have it and bonus content everything true weird is waiting for you at true weird stuff.com And follow true weird stuff on instagram and twitter true weird stuff is a Now! Media production Our executive producer is anthony garcia. The show is written and hosted by me Sheri Lynch along with my deeply weird director Max sweetie Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser additional production by the mysterious steven Call our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr original graphics by kevin nash original artworks by Olivia Axland true weird original music composed and performed by jack griffin and st Nash copyright 2023 Now! Media all rights reserved all wrongs remembered You